Grinnell College officials have rejected a bargaining proposal from the school’s student workers union and reiterated that they won't negotiate with the group while an appeal is pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

The day after students voted to expand unionization of student workers, the union’s adviser emailed Grinnell’s president proposing a minimum wage of $9 per hour and a pledge to not strike or engage in work stoppages during 2019.

Currently, Grinnell pays non-union student workers a minimum of $8 an hour. The minimum wage in Iowa is $7.25 an hour.

Raynard Kington, Grinnell’s president, dismissed the group’s request. College officials have “concluded that we legally cannot bargain or discuss a framework agreement with (the student workers union) while our appeal is pending before the NLRB,” Kington wrote in a response that was posted on Grinnell’s website.

The college also posted the Nov. 28 email from Cory McCartan, the student workers union’s adviser and a Grinnell senior.

McCartan started the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers in 2016. McCartan had asked in the email that his correspondence with Kington not be made public.

“It hurts both sides if we feel that we can’t be forthright and open in our written communications,” McCartan wrote.

Kington, in his response, replied that the college would not honor McCartan’s request to keep the correspondence private.

"It is important for the college to maintain its commitment to transparency," Kington wrote.

Grinnell student workers in 2016 voted to form the dining workers union, becoming one of the nation’s only independent undergraduate student labor unions on a private college campus.

Grinnell administrators bargained with the group, which succeeded in raising wages for dining workers.

In a campus communication, Grinnell officials in early November wrote that they supported the dining workers union because "their work is standardized, routine work carried out in regular shifts."

However, officials wrote that the school opposed an expansion of the union because it would "negatively impact Grinnell’s mission and culture."

Grinnell, a private liberal arts college with about 1,670 students, had $173.4 million in expenses in the year that ended June 30, 2017, the school’s 990 tax form shows.

The school funds about half of its operating budget annually with its endowment, which totals more than $1.8 billion.

Less than 2 percent of expenses — about $2 million — is spent on student wages, briefs filed with the NLRB show. The school has more than 700 student workers.

Grinnell attempted to stop the Nov. 27 election when it asked the NLRB’s regional director not to allow the election to take place.

The regional director, however, did allow the election — a move that prompted the college to ask the full board to halt the election or impound election ballots. The student union group opposed Grinnell's request.

In 2016, a decision by the then-Democrat-controlled labor board ruled that Columbia University’s student assistants were employees under the federal labor law. That decision allowed students workers at private universities to organize.

Members of the union have called on the college to drop its opposition to the unionization of all student workers. On Friday, student workers protested Grinnell’s refusal to recognize the union.

Student worker wages have been stagnant at Grinnell, McCartan said.

“Every year our tuition goes up but wages stay the same," he said. "It’s important that we have a way to come together and negotiate over these things so we can collectively improve and make sure people can afford to come to college here.”

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